This invention relates to tufting machines and more particularly to a means for balancing the oscillatory forces of the tufting machine looper assembly.
Tufting machines incorporate a multiplicity of yarn carrying needles which reciprocate cyclically to penetrate a backing fabric and cooperate with a multiplicity of loopers beneath the backing to form pile in the backing. The loopers of conventional tufting machines are driven with an oscillatory motion into loop seizing engagement with the needles. The forces generated by the oscillating looper assembly create equal and opposite reaction forces in the frame of the tufting machine. These reaction forces result in a vibration of the frame. With the recent increase in operational speed of tufting machines, the magnitude of these forces and the resultant vibrations have now reached unacceptable levels. The machines shake excessively in their foundations with the end result being machine degradation and waste of energy. The horizontal vibration levels in the bed of the machine have now been found to be the most unacceptable and substantially all of the horizontal vibration is now attributed to the looper mechanism.